The accused Gilgo Beach serial killer was a nerdy guy who left little love notes on a classmate’s locker in high school, the shocked former schoolmate recalled Sunday.
Rex Heuermann was quiet, shy and got picked on by other kids at Berner High School in Massapequa, L.I., Maureen Boyle-Holpit, 59, told the Daily News.
The love notes she found were unsigned, but she caught Heuermann in the act of leaving one on her locker, she said. She didn’t return his feelings, but he wasn’t threatening and she wasn’t afraid of him, she added.
“He seemed like a nice person. I felt sorry for him,” Boyle-Holpit remembered, speaking from her home in Florida. “He was very quiet, kind of shy, seemed like a gentle giant.”
He was “kind of nerdy” and he was picked on, she noted. “I was nice to him.”
They graduated in 1981 and she didn’t know what happened to him after high school. Actor Billy Baldwin has said he, too, was in the same suburban high school class as the suspected serial killer.
Learning that the quiet geek from high school is the monster accused of killing three sex workers was “very crazy,” Boyle-Holpit said. She learned of his arrest from a friend who called and told her to check out the latest news reports.
“I was shocked. I was blown away,” she said. “I pray for the families that lost their loved ones.”
Zachary Szpila, the half brother of Gilgo Beach victim Melissa Barthelemy, said Heuermann “hurt a lot of families, mine included.”
“I hope that whoever he prays to, someone can forgive him, but it’s not gonna be us,” the 25-year-old relative said.
The married father of two is accused in the deaths of Barthelemy, Megan Waterman and Amber Costello and is the prime suspect in the death of Maureen Brainard-Barnes.
Barthelemy, who was from Buffalo and lived in the Bronx, was the first victim found at Gilgo Beach. Her body was discovered in December 2010, more than a year after she went missing.
Two days later, the bodies of three other women were found not far away.
The killer made phone calls to taunt Barthelemy’s family using her cell phone, and at least one such call was traced to Massapequa, not far from Heuermann’s house.
Szpila said his parents, including the father he shares with the victim, were “doing OK” with the news.
“It’s just like resurfacing memories and everything,” he said. “I think we have to see how all of it plays out before my parents get any kind of, like, for real closure.”
The 59-year-old architect from Massapequa was charged Friday with three of the murders in the long-unsolved string of killings and pleaded innocent. If convicted on all charges, Heuermann could face several life sentences in prison with no possibility of parole.
Suffolk County authorities say they have not ruled out Heuermann in connection with the deaths of another six victims whose bodies were found in the remote stretch of swampy scrubland and tangled brambles.
In all, the remains of 11 victims have been found — nine women, one man and a toddler. All of them except the little girl are believed to have been sex workers.
The tall, heavy suspect was arrested on a Manhattan street outside his Midtown office Thursday night.
In high school, Boyle-Holpit said, Heuerman was distinctive for being so much taller than other kids.
A pimp for victim Amber Costello, who helped authorities nab Heuermann, also pointed out his size.
The unidentified pimp said he and Costello had met up with a man, later revealed as likely to have been Heuermann, with the intention of robbing him. But seeing how big he was, they scrapped their plans.
The pimp met with investigators in spring 2022, and his description of the man’s truck, a green first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche pickup, proved to be a turning point in the case.
Investigators used cell phone site data to track the suspect’s whereabouts at the times of the slayings and discovered burner phones allegedly used by Heuermann to arrange his meetings with the victims.
Heuermann’s DNA was found on a pizza crust retrieved from his trash, and he is linked to a hair found in a piece of burlap used to move Waterman’s remains, officials said.
His rundown Massapequa home remained blocked off Sunday by law enforcement, and investigators could be seen bringing boxes and other items out of the house and loading them into waiting vehicles.
